As for culture, community and entertainment, it really is top notch. McKinney has a great local culture and the square is a great historic site with tons of shops, restaurants and lots of events through the year. Dallas is just a 20 minute drive down the highway and full of art, entertainment and more.

FWIW, the DFW area has a LOT of sprawl. If you look to move, make sure you are in the area you will do most of your living (and working) in. Pick the wrong part of the area and you are stuck with a brutal drive in traffic. Before you move, spend a week on vacation and make sure and drive around during the times you would be going to work. It may be an hour for me to get to Erwin (which is a fun fast trail) on the weekend, but it would be closer to 2 hours during rush hour on a bad day. I have known people that choose where to live in this area based on what the internet says the demographics are like and have ended up pretty unhappy.

Schools are paid for by property tax, which is very high in Texas no matter the city. Austin >>> DFW but costs are much higher for living.

Interesting. School and Property Tax combined I pay 10K a year in NY. The property seems to be more affordable in the DFW area but the high taxes keep the schools running efficiently. You also say the cost of living is high in McKinney?

Property tax in a city in Texas is going to be 2.4-2.9% the value of your home every year. And it is not fixed, so if your house goes up in the value your property tax continues to climb, although the increase is capped at 10% year over year, or if you are 65 and up they will freeze the amount.

If you buy a house outside of a city (just in the county) you can expect ~1% lower yearly property tax but probably slightly higher utility rates.

Property tax in a city in Texas is going to be 2.4-2.9% the value of your home every year. And it is not fixed, so if your house goes up in the value your property tax continues to climb, although the increase is capped at 10% year over year, or if you are 65 and up they will freeze the amount.

If you buy a house outside of a city (just in the county) you can expect ~1% lower yearly property tax but probably slightly higher utility rates.

Texas also has no state income tax (which many others do). As to the question of why McKinney has a nice school district... the tax rate may be low, but when you have a higher average value of house, you get more tax money. When you have a general "white flight" north in the area to places like McKinney, Allen, Keller, etc, much of the money is taken north and the bigger house are built there. In turn, you can have "lower" tax rates but still pay more in taxes.

Winter isn't bad. We get, usually, 1 or 2 days of ice (not snow!) and the entire area shuts down because it is usually too hazardous to drive on the ice. Summers are hot/humid and water is being rationed. I was born and raised in North Texas, so I am very acclimated to the weather, so I love it.... "foreigners" often hate it though because where they came from was either cooler or hot and dry. It isn't the best weather, it also isn't the worst.

All that said, we don't have indoor bike parks for a reason. So long as the trails aren't muddy, you can ride 12 months out of the year and never flinch.

McKinney is basically in the NE/NNE edge of the mentioned sprawl. From a biking perspective, take a look at the Texas trails map and zoom into the Dallas area. You'll see that you're close to maybe 1-3 trails. Those are generally considered the entry level trails. Northshore and Big Cedar are the trails which people tend to rank the highest.

Hopefully, you'll work in McKinney, Plano, Richardson, or Frisco. If you're in downtown Dallas, check some Google maps drives times. Most would use about 40 minute drive time default estimate.

If you like to do anything else outdoors besides mountain bike I would pick somewhere else to live. Dallas is at least 3-4 hours away from any decent hiking, kayaking, backpacking etc.. The land in Texas is about 99% privately owned so the recreation opportunities unless you like to fish are few and far between. If all you like to do is ride mtb then DFW is a good spot because they have plopped a trail down on just about anything > 100 acres.

Texas also has no state income tax (which many others do). As to the question of why McKinney has a nice school district... the tax rate may be low, but when you have a higher average value of house, you get more tax money. When you have a general "white flight" north in the area to places like McKinney, Allen, Keller, etc, much of the money is taken north and the bigger house are built there. In turn, you can have "lower" tax rates but still pay more in taxes.

Un-PC as hell, but the real answer lies in the above: white flight. The less cynical answer is that the people that give a damn about schools, wealthy and otherwise, basically band together and get the schools in shape. Which may also be the answer as to why suburbs get "abandoned." When economics and other factors can't keep people that don't give a damn about schools out of a burb, there's another one further out to take its place.

DFW is not exactly outdoor paradise, but there are places to fish and camp within an hour or two, including world class bass fishing. Most of the Dallas trails are in various burbs, including the northern ones like McKinney.

I'm a North Texas native also and went to school in Austin. The hot in Texas is really topped only by Arizona. It's )(#*&$)(#@*& hot here. Austin has a lot more geography and hence more outdoor opportunities. It's also ridiculously popular with furriners (get a rope!) and overpriced. Traffic is also horribad. It's basically unlivable at present.

Just not sure where to go anymore. Sounds nice down there in the DFW area, but I don't know anybody and have to have work lined up. My sister and brother in law will end up in AZ where my brother is, and well I'm not sure if I want to move there.

While northern DFW does have ALOT of trails, it might not be the type of trails you are thinking of. mostly XC type trails with minimum amount of elevation. Northshore is a good somewhat technical trail, and Big Cedar, down southwest of Dallas, is probably the biggest, gnarliest trails in the area.

where are you coming from?

im NOT trashing the DFW trails at all. theyre great and DORBA does an amazing job with the terrain/land available, but want to make sure OP has the right expectations of what kind of trails are there

sooner518 isn't bashing, he is just stating the obvious. North Texas is part of the plains, for the most part. We do have an escarpment here or there (Big Cedar is built on the largest in the area), but if you are looking for downhill riding, we don't have it. If you want to climb for hours, we don't have it. We have trees, roots and a few rocks. We do also have a kick ass biking community though. For the area being as "flat" as it is (there are MUCH flatter spots... like Kansas), there are a lot of folks that are truly into off road riding.